Piyush Pandey | Sometimes greatness sports a Rajput moustache

In Mumbai, usually the 25th of October is hot and sunny. Not that day. Perhaps, it was the emotions of the multitude who had come to pay their last respects to a legend that made the sky turn gloomy and tearful.

To be honest, I never think of him as a legend. He is just Piyush. (As long as I am, he won’t be ‘was’.) He is a man to climb the mountains with. For you knew he would push you onwards when you were ready to give up. Pull you up, if you were in danger of falling. Then burst forth with that trademark booming laugh, as if what he did for you was nothing. He was like that with the folks (creatives, planners, servicing) who were lucky enough to be his flock. Even his clients. So many brands and people reached great heights because of his — planted in the rich soil of life — creativity. Effortless leadership. Relentless humanity. Now he’s up there, doing the same thing with the angels.

Piyush Pandey
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Special arrangement

We have been awash in tributes to his incredible work. His transformational imprint on Indian advertising. Even his glorious moustache. So, I will refrain from adding my ‘do boond’ to that particular Ganges of fulsome praise. Instead, I will talk about the man I love, who I believe loves me back. Though neither of us have said so to each other. Not in so many words. At least, not while we were sober enough to remember. That is the tragedy of being born and raised as a ‘Man’. We are taught that the silence of a tight hug says more than the wagging of the tongue. But sometimes the ears need to hear what the heart already knows.

A man with an endearing side

I will say this, Piyush doesn’t have a funny bone in his body. His skeleton is infused with humour. But he doesn’t always have the greatest confidence in his jokes. Maybe that is why he laughed the moment he was done telling one. Laughed before we could, as a prompt to our own hilarity. I thought it was so endearing that a man who is so confident in everything could be a tad insecure about such a little thing. It made me comfortable with my own insecurities. And gave me the strength to overcome them.

I learned that, and so much more from him. Learned to showcase my ideas from the hard class of him inviting people into his room by telling them, ‘Bobby may have a good idea. Watch how he murders it.’ Their chuckles made me tougher. Watching how he presented, got people into the world of the story he was telling, made me better. I also learned the value of insights when he started charging me ₹50 for every idea I came up with that was just clever. After I had imbibed the dictum ‘when you move the heart, the head will follow’, he gave me the bounty he had collected. Of course, my colleague Anil Bathwal and I promptly spent it on sampling the delights of Rasna Pub.

Bobby Pawar

For a short time, Bathwal and I were partners at Ogilvy India and Ogilvy New York. It didn’t take us long to become brothers. But Piyush bound us closer still, when he took to calling us Bobby Bathwal while summoning, praising, and berating us. It got so bad that when we started winning awards, people from other agencies thought it was some dude called Bobby Bathwal who did the work. Thanks for fusing our individuality, Piyush. And bossman, just in case you don’t get it, I am being sarcastic.

Raising a glass of Teachers

I am literally smiling through my tears as I write this. Smiling at the memory of Piyush exasperatedly pounding on my keyboard to stop the video game that Bathwal and I were playing against each other on our computers. Smiling about the time we emotionally blackmailed him into switching from (IMFL) Royal Challenge to Teachers just because I wanted to drink scotch and couldn’t afford it. And I am crying because Piyush will never again tell me, ‘Robert, mere liye ek drink banaa.’

Renuka Jaypal, Mahesh Chauhan, Niranjan Kaushik, Sagar Mahabaleshwarkar, Anuja Kimatrai, Sheran Mehra and Bobby Pawar “hitting the nearest bar to raise a toast to the man”.
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Special arrangement

After the funeral was over, some of us did the most Piyush thing we could. We hit the nearest bar to raise a toast to the man. I had a large whiskey, with two cubes of ice and soda. It took time, but Piyush had finally returned the favour. He had emotionally blackmailed me into giving up my now usual single malt for a shot of Teachers.

The writer is the former chairman and chief creative officer at Havas Group.